Dr. Gonzo

Earlier in the year the comments in the media were that his body was cooked and he also was getting pushed/blocked off way too easily. North seems to be blowing everything up to start again like we did in 2007/08, they obviously haven't learnt from previous mistakes. 11 delistings plus Brown, Higgins and Polec that's a third of your list!

Look at the selectors and you'll see why WHO CHOOSES THE TEAM? The All Australian selection panel is Gillon McLachlan (chairman), Kevin Bartlett, Luke Darcy, Steve Hocking, Glen Jakovich, Chris Johnson, Cameron Ling, Matthew Richardson and Warren Tredrea

Not only that Goldstein has every right to be scratching his head as I think he was the best ruckman this year and couldn't even land the backup spot.

Easy pickings for the rest of the NFL then, hope to see a Panthers player kick a bag down at Para Rd ;)

The compensation is dependent on everything else that happens. No guarantee we get a 1st round pick. Who is this outside midfielder you would be trading the compo for? Are they available? Will we bring in any FA's that will offset the Viney compo? TMac is not best 22. Losing Harmes may make our team worse depending on who replaces him. Viney just finished top 3 in our B&F and has finished top 3 in 5 of his 7 or 8 years (keeping in mind he was out injured for a majority of 2018). Harmes has never finished top 5 as far as I know so not comparing apples with apples.

Wasn't Rawlings moved from Casey to forwards coach to take over from Rooke who was relegated from the forward coach to a development coach? Or Chaplin was moved from forwards to defense to cover Rooke and then Rawlings was brought in as forward coach to cover Chaplin.

I thought Yze wanted to come to us last year but Hawks refused to let him go as he was still contracted? Wouldn't make sense for them to let him go to Essendon while still contracted for 2021.

"Major football department review" undertaken by Josh Mahoney who basically just reshuffled the deck chairs. All our current coaches were there prior to the review with the exception of Richardson who basically replaced McCartney. Don't think anyone replaced Jennings.

We won't be trading him as he is a FA. You could name 2 from every other team but we aren't getting them so it is irrelevant. He is in our best 22 and losing him will make our team worse. That is the fact of the matter.

My opinions below Alan Richardson - not really sure what he adds - still am yet to see his position be adequately described. Personally I'm not a fan but hard to see him leaving one year into a 5(?) year contract. Troy Chaplin - Gone. Backline has been good based on personnel and team defence. He's been around too long and hasn't offered much in the way of individual development of players. We still see the same mistakes made (3 up none down) and we still get killed by small forwards out the back. Hasn't been able to develop OMac or Smith but maybe sometimes it's just what you have to work with. Hasn't really developed Lever beyond what he already brought to the club for mine. Justin Plapp - Gone. Forward coach now apparently but comes with limited experience, and have seen no evidence of his ability to coach our forward structure, leading patterns or ability to work in space. Weideman still underruns the footy, our small forwards are really in correct position (front and centre) and our mid-small forwards don't apply enough pressure. Ben Mathews - Mathews has a good pedigree and came in with a good reputation with Roos. Our mids have stagnated though in terms of clearance work and congestion. With Gawn, Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw etc we should be dominating the clearances like we did a couple of years back but we seem to have been worked out and lost the clearances in most games in the second half of this year. We still see the "bees to a honeypot" at times though this is improving but we don't have embedded structures around the contest. Maybe that only comes with experience and repetition but after 6 or 7 years you would think it is long enough. Watching the best teams they work there way out of clearances and congestion with set play triangulation handballing with players knowing exactly where there teammates are around the contest without needing to look for the handball opportunity. We still don't have that and our mids tend to play well based on individual brilliance (Petracca, Oliver & Viney in particular) rather working as a team within a structure. Possibly survives to ensure some continuity with the midfield group but really the club should probably be looking at who else is available. Matthew Egan - Gone. Development is still a major issue at our club. Egan has been around for a long time as well yet we have seen minimal development in any players other than Petracca and May who you would say is mostly off the back of working harder in pre-season and being individually driven to get the best out of themselves. Hannan, VDB, Hunt, ANB etc still get 6 or 7 touches a game, our small forwards don't get to the right positions and don't pressure, Brayshaw can't play off a wing, Harmes can't play off half back, Melksham has gone backwards, Tomlinson couldn't play off a wing, OMac and Smith are still the same defensively as they were when they were recruited, Weideman still underruns the ball and gets pushed off the ball too easily, Fritsch misses too many set shots and doesn't get to the right positions etc Where is our player development??? Max Rooke - Gone. Similar to Egan except Rooke has the added ignominy of being a failed line coach so was shifted sideways into a "development" role. Sam Radford - Will survive based on the cancellation of the VFL season. Have no idea on him one way or the other.

He might be trying to adjust his game to break free of the congestion prior to releasing the ball (ala Oliver) rather than just shooting off handballs to teammates under pressure. He's still a valuable member of the team and required in our midfield rotations moving forward. Don't forget we had shorter quarters this year limiting the midfield minutes of some players and a pretty good run with injuries. If 1, 2 or 3 of those in our midfield rotation go down with injuries next year plus we lose Viney prepare to see the likes of ANB lining up in the square at centre bounces.

he'll be 31yrs and 5 months by the time his contract expires

I'm surprised only 3 have been confirmed so far

How can North ask for anything when they're pushing him out the door? They should take a late-3rd/4th rounder and be happy he is off the books.

I think they started keeping full games of every game each round sometime in the mid 90s when Optus vision started showing games on paytv. Maybe around 96/97. There is a severe shortage of game footage prior to that and in particular prior to the early 90s. The story goes that either a fire damaged a lot of the film in channel 7s archive or another story is that they sent old footage to a tip as they didn't want to store it all in warehouses. That's why there was limited availability of old games through name a game when they were still kicking. They have most finals from the 80s and all Grand Finals going back to 1965 but home and away games from back then are extremely rare. Most footage that survives from the 70s, 80s and early 90s is due to individual collectors who recorded it off tv back then or had other ways to access it (for example I have a couple of games we played against Fitzroy, Brisbane and Richmond from the early 90s which seem to be the footage that was used for the scoreboard at the ground, single camera and no tv commentary. Some is silent whereas some has radio commentary of the game dubbed over the top). I've been trading games with some collectors for about 10 years now and have a decent collection of old Melbourne games mainly dating from 1987 onwards. I have some older stuff though including a brief 5 minute clip of the 1964 game at Glenferrie Oval where Hassan Mann kicked a snap from the pocket to seal the win which I uploaded to YouTube. I would be surprised if any on demand service included much from before the 90s with only select H&A games from the early 90s though I could be wrong. It would be great if they had even full versions of the Saturday Night Replay from the late 80s as I doubt they have many full H&A games. Back then when they had 6 games on a Saturday arvo they generally had tv crews at 2 games which they showed on the replay with single cameras filming the other games with no commentary. If anyone has the "Demon Attack 94" video you'll notice some games where the footage is single camera with no commentary, notably the first game against the Cats where Jakovich kicked 8 and high-fived a supporter in the crowd after a goal. Edit - this thread on BigFooty among others has discussed the lack of footage available pre-90s https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/who-owns-the-afl-vfl-archive-of-games.538113/post-13936470

There's been talk of a midseason "festival of footy" again to have games on every night for 3 or 4 weeks incorporating each team's byes instead of the 3 weeks X 6 games we see now. This would allow them to try and get some extra games into the season to beef up the broadcast deals due to lost revenue.

1st round pick? Ya dreaming

So trade out Fritsch for a 2nd rounder and give Hawks their 2nd rounder back for Gunston?

And Mitch Hibberd?

Cockatoo can't get on the park, no thanks

Going off the 2020 out of contract and rookie players in the pinned thread Delist OMac, Smith, Wagner, Wagner, Nietschke, Hannan, Bedford, Chandler, Dunkley, Jones Tradebait Fritsch Re-sign Viney, Hibberd, Spargo, Sparrow, Petty, Hunt, Jordon(?) Upgrade Brown and Lockhart to senior list Contracted players who should be moved on Jetta, Kolodjashnij, ANB, TMac, Preuss (may need to keep as insurance in case Max gets injured)

I know they have protocols in place, but the clubs have been in Queensland for 6-8 weeks now, why are they still isolated in hubs? Surely they can move around the community like any other Queenslanders I feel sorry for Bennell. Dumb choice to hit the booze with his history - I don't know the extent of his substance abuse whether he was an addict or just a user but either way you'd think he would be staying away from booze in season. I wonder if his family is up there with him, would be difficult being away from a young family for 2 months.

And no doubt we'll be picking up a portion of TMacs salary. Who is in charge of contracts, Mahoney I assume? For all his ability to get things done at the trade table I think his willingness to hand out exorbitant contracts that hamstring our list management is a massive cross against him. Not to mention his management of our assistant coaches/footy department. It makes sense for them to seek a trade considering they are obviously considered no more than depth for us moving forward. I mean if OMac is behind Smith and TMac is behind Brown they'll see nothing but games at windswept Casey in their futures if they stay with us. Only problem is not sure who would be interested in them.

Did you see who he had upfield to kick to? I know he is quick, can break lines and is generally a neat kick. What impressed me yesterday was his one on one work. If we can get him he will be an automatic selection and will complement Salem nicely across half back. Could also go some way to solving our small defender problem as we often get torched by opposition small forwards.

Crows wouldn't do that surely. Is Fogarty the one they got with our pick for Lever? Would be funny if it did happen.